Harvey Weather Forecast

Monday, November 21, 2011

From Blues of Bridgetown to Fremantle Markets

Blues of Bridgetown - Blues Music and Street Festival

On Saturday 12th November we drove 130 km south past apple orchards and wineries, crossed a few rivers to get to the forested and hilly town of Bridgetown. Each year it hosts a music festival dedicated to the blues which attracts thousands of spectators. The main street downtown was only for buskers, street performers, musicians, fashion/ food/ trinkets stalls and of course tourists. The atmosphere was electric, pun intended, and eclectic. We heard covers bands sing - The Cranberries to Tom Petty to Amy Winehouse; a rock and roll bag piper playing both punk and traditional Scottish ballads; Australian blues men belting out the best Aussie blues and harmonica tunes as well.

It was such a cool atmosphere, with five different stages to hear free music. We soaked it up, unfortunately we could only stay for half a day of the three day festival.

Saturday 19th November - Fremantle Markets

Becky and Collin left the kids with the friendly neighbours and drove 130 km north to the eclectic side of the city to check out the markets. Great fruit and veg, plenty of Australiana souvenirs, art, and fantastic smells from the ethnic cooking and various flavours of coffee beans roasting.

Inside the markets.

Outside the markets. Going strong since the 1890s.

A painted mural under a highway overpass brings plenty of fans and his grave is reputedly the most visited in Australia. This rock icon wasn't born in Fremantle, but grew up there and his parents continued to call it home for the remainder of their days. Who is it?

View of a lovely lady and some fast boats. What else could a bloke ask for?

Becky and Collin had a date lunch with no kids. So we went to a Spanish inspired restaurant called Gypsy Tapas which serves small plated food all made from scratch. http://gypsytapashouse.com.au/

Tapas are small snack sized plates of French/ Mediterranean/ Spanish/ Italian style food items originally served with your wine or drinks. We had 14 or 15 different dishes to try over the 1 hour and a 1/2 we were there. ﻿ We ate char grilled local scallops and prawns, pickled sardines, best tasting lamb bastille ever, chorizo sausage, smoked asparagus with sesame, Turkish bread and hummus, curried chicken skewers, Jamaican pork cooked in coffee and pineapples, thick slices of baked feta and crushed tomato, mushrooms a la grecque, some other vegetables and unknown dishes from the chef's set menu. Yum Yum.

The answer of the Rock Icon is... Bon Scott.

Back in April, Grandma Hughes found a statue dedicated to AC/DC's first front man at the Fremantle Boat Harbour.